Advanced Ornaments

Ornaments are used to decorate a note - originally they were used in the Baroque period when harpsichords (the first type of piano) couldn’t play dynamics. Instead of making the music interesting with forte and piano, they would add in ornaments. Musicians often used ornaments ​ ​ ​ ​ as part of improvisation in their performances.

Grace notes or acciaccaturas

Acciaccaturas look like this:

They are small notes that appear before the written note and are normally the note directly above or below the written note. The slash through the note means that we play the acciaccatura really quickly. Sometimes we ​ ​ ​ ​ call this a crushed note. ​ Sometimes we play the acciaccatura just before the beat and sometimes we play it on the beat ​ ​ ​ ​ depending on the style of music. If not indicated on the music, play just before the beat.

Trills

Trills looks like this:

The symbol is either the letters tr or a wiggly line over the note. ​ ​ ​ ​ When we see this, it means that we have to move between the note written and the note above repeatedly. The trill lasts for as long as the written note length is. So for the example above, we would play the trill for a minim (for two beats).

Trills can be played in different ways depending on the period the music was written.

If we are playing a piece from the Baroque/Classical period and before then it is stylistic to play ​ the trill note FIRST. This means the trill starts on the upper note and trills down to the written ​ ​ note.

As we move into the late Romantic period and more modern works, however, it is common to trill starting from the written note and moving upwards. ​

It is also interesting to experiment with SPEED in trills. It is often nice to start a trill quite slowly ​ ​ and then speed up toward the end, making the trill more musical.

Spread chord or arpeggiation

A spread chord looks like this:

You only find it on music for instruments that can play more than one note at a time! The vertical wiggly line means that rather than playing the notes as a chord (so all at once), you spread each note out.

In this example, we would play the G - B - D in quick succession after each other.

Mordent

A mordent looks like this:

The zigzag symbol is how we recognise to play a mordent. It means that we play the note written, then go up to the note directly above and then back down to the original note. In this example it would D - E - D.

There is also a lower mordent which looks like this:

Can you notice the difference? - The symbol for a lower mordent has a line going through it. ​ ​ When we see this, we know to play the note lower, rather than upper. It means that we play the note written, then go down to the note directly below and then back down to the original note. In this example it would be E - D - E.

Turn

A turn looks like this:

It sort of looks like a sideways - backwards letter S! It’s nice to think of a turn as turning around the note. ​ ​ This means that we play UP one note, then we go back to the original, go DOWN one note and finish on the original note. In this example, we would play D - C - B - C.

There is also an inverted turn which looks like this:

The difference is the same as the lower mordent - there is a line through the symbol. This is how we recognise the inverted turn. This means that we play DOWN one note, then we go back to the original, go UP one note and finish on the original note. So it’s an exact reverse of a normal turn

In this example, we would play D - E - F - E

Appoggiatura

An appoggiatura looks like this:

It can often be confused with the acciaccatura (or grace note). The difference is that an acciaccatura has a line through it and is played very quickly (almost crushed) before the written note. An appoggiatura is played by taking half of the value from the original note, so the example would be played like this:

Chromatic Alterations of Ornaments

As a general rule when playing ornaments, we stick to the key signature. If we were playing in the key of E major (4 #s) and there was a mordent marking over an E, we would play the notes E - F# - E.

Sometimes, however, composers use ornaments whilst they’re changing the harmony and so it doesn’t always make sense to stick to the key signature.

In this instance, they write a ♮, # or ♭ over the ornament so you know to play a note that is not in the key signature.

THAT’S IT - WELL DONE!